The engineering students at King Saud University made a splash at the important Geneva Motor Show. ‘Autoblog’, which writes on all things automotive, has the story and lots of pictures. The story is picked up in Saudi media, of course, but I think this write-up is more comprehensive.
Credit: Weblogs, Inc
King Saud University Gazal-1 is one whopper of a student project
Jonny LiebermanImagine this: you’re sitting there in your engineering class and the professor walks in and says, “You’re getting a little project this semester. I’d like you to design an SUV. But not just any SUV, one that takes into account the environment and population of the Arabian Gulf. 20% of your grade is riding on it.”
That’s right, King Saud University (KSU) students in Saudi Arabia were asked to create a new SUV called the Gazal-1. If you’re wondering, Gazal means “gazelle” in Arabic. Why you would name a hulking, International Truck-looking off-roader after a lithe, speedy and athletic mammal is anyone’s guess. Still, you must admit, for a bunch of college kids, they did a fine job.
The big green truck here at the Geneva Motor Show is actually just a model, a styling exercise if you will. However, the Gazal-1 is more than just an engineering project. A business plan has been part of the Gazal-1 since the get-go. Are we saying that the KSU kids’ truck will one day make it to production? Mostly likely no. However, KSU’s reason for such an ambitious project is to “Promote the culture of automotive industry, to train young engineers who can participate in research and development.” Those are some educational goals we can get behind.
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I think it’s an interesting design, but not exactly my cup of tea. It’s a little too angular to my taste. I’d like to know more, though, about the technical specifications and how it meets the particular demands of Saudi roads and off-road driving.
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March:04:2010 - 11:22
John,
Are you sure Gazal means gazelle in Arabic? Gazal is a common Urdu word and it means song in Urdu.
Not my taste either.
March:04:2010 - 12:46
Yes, Ghazal (with the Arabic letter ?ayn rather than a hard ‘G’ sound) means ‘gazelle’ and is, of course, the source word for the English. I’m familiar with Gazal as a type of music and don’t mind it. I like the close harmonies!
March:04:2010 - 21:28
Why you would name a hulking, International Truck-looking off-roader after a lithe, speedy and athletic mammal is anyone’s guess. Still, you must admit, for a bunch of college kids, they did a fine job.
I think that was the point of the name: speed, off-road agility, and manoevrability. Also at least in Morocco, calling someone/something a gazelle is a way of expressing admiration for their/its beauty. A thing of beauty then, as well.
What a great engineering project; and having the business plan built in to it was another stroke of pedagogical intelligence! I am sure the students learned a great deal and have a sense of pride about their accomplishment. Building vehicles for Gulf climatic conditions and terrains makes a great deal of sense. Canadian and American car manufacturers have done the same for Northern conditions as have Germans and some Asian cars.
Interestingly re: ghazal vs gazal, Urdu, while written in Perso-Arabic script, and drawing on Persian, Arabic, and Turkic vocabulary additions, is an Indo-Aryan language not a Semitic one like Arabic; and is much closer in structure and vocabulary to Hindi, which is written in an Indian script and draws on more Sanskrit vocabulary. Both are considered variants of Hindustani, and in oral usage they are mutually comprehensible dialects rather than separate languages. In the more formal written literary uses they are still considered registers of the same language, even though political considerations drive some to exaggerate their differences.
Since I work with many Indian and Pakistani colleagues it is alway interested me to see them list both Hindi and Urdu as languages they are able to work in, including the ones who aren’t particularly linguistically inclined. However, it makes more sense when one considers how close the 2 are.
In my admittedly limited search “gana” came up most often as the Urdu for song, and is unrelated to the Arabic or the SUV the students designed–good thing, one would prefer to move cross country like a gazelle rather than a melody. LOL
March:05:2010 - 02:01
it’s an (exterior) design project! no real engineering involved.
March:05:2010 - 05:15
Just wondering, did anyone guess that it is based on Merc G-class??? I still cant figure out how it is even related to it.
My first thought after seeing the picture, before reading the article, was that it is an FJ Cruiser. And even after looking at all the pics, I still think its a Toyota FJ Cruiser.
March:05:2010 - 05:23
Ghazal is Urdu for song, Shayari for poetry. Gana is a kind of a colloquial word used more in Hindi and less in Urdu, since it has more Hindi words than Urdu.
A Ghazal is always used in the context of Urdu poetry, never in the context of Hindi poetry.
There are many spheres where these two languages don’t overlap.
Urdu uses the Hindi sentence structure as its vehicle, but there are differences. They are not the same language. In fact there are very few people who have fluency in both the languages. People who write this in documents are most likely misleading.
I myself know Hindi as a native speaker and therefore also understand Urdu very well but I wouldn’t write in any document that I have fluency in Urdu.
More on Ghazal and how a gazelle and a song can have the same word –
Originally Arabic, it is borrowed by Persian and came to Urdu via Persian.
This word is a derivative of Arabic “Ghazaal,” which means the wail of a wounded deer. Therefore, its extended meaning is the sad communication of a lover separated from his beloved – a very common theme in Urdu Ghazals.
Therefore, a Ghazal implies a deer as well as a song or poem consisting of a few stanzas.
A deer has the literary symbolisms of beauty and speed. Therefore, a vehicle called Ghazal should be both beautiful and fast.
Those who want to know more about the Urdu ghazal, may read this – http://www.rekhasurya.com/indianghazal.htm
March:05:2010 - 08:46
Me–bearing in mind that my knowledge of engineering is limited to “some of my best friends, family, and patients are engineers”, wouldn’t materials engineering be involved in this? and at least some minimal engineering skills required for the adaptations from the original parts assigned? or is it only nominally engineering because it was assigned by an engineering professor to engineering students in a faculty of engineering, ie a case of “linguistic engineering” (as below)?
Hishmaj–I knew immediately, especially from the back view, that it was a Mercedes G-class. Could there be any question?
Daisy–thank you for the explanation and the excellent reference.
As I said, my resources were limited and I am assuming gave the generic common word for song, gana, as opposed to the specific poetry/song genre of the ghazal.
My colleagues list themselves professionally as working in both Hindi and Urdu, meaning they feel they have the linguistic competence to treat patients who speak either language.
Linguistic competence is “task specific” as you probably know, so hopefully this is true, and not just a marketing ploy or wishful thinking on their part. For basic psychiatry and biological treatment linguistic competency would be easier to acquire than for psychotherapy, and particularly psychoanalysis.
I have based my linguistic comments more on the writings of academic linguists who do trace the development of Urdu and Hindi as gradually distinguishing themselves from a more common ancestor language, particularly in written, technical, official, and literary usages. They later were further polarized by the politics of communal identity, and of independence movements–from the British who had their own both divisive and unifying policies, and from each other. Again, the average person was/is less fussed about this than those engaged in “linguistic engineering” ie the deliberate manipulation of language, its usages, and valorizations, in this case (and often) for political gain of one, and its group. becoming official and dominant, while the other is relegated to dialectal and minority status.
I found the following articles particularly good, among the many others on the subject:
Hindustani as an Anxiety Between Hindi–Urdu Commitment
The Anxiety of Hindustani
THE PERSISTENCE OF HINDUSTANI*
March:05:2010 - 09:00
There are several neighboring languages–geographically–that are so closely related that the speakers of one may legitimately claim fluency (though not in all professional aspects) in the second. Frequently, though, there are what seem to be ‘one-way valves’, where to the speakers of, say, Polish, Ukrainian or Belorussian will be easy, but Ukrainian or Belorussian speakers will have a harder time managing Polish due to either more complicated grammatical structure in Polish or the presence of certain sound/letters that don’t exist in their own languages. Portuguese-speakers, too, manage Spanish without much problem, but only those who speak the Gallician dialect of Spanish can handle the complications of Portuguese. I’ve no date (though wish I did) on how that works out in Latin America, between Spanish-speakers and speakers of Brazilian Portuguese.
March:05:2010 - 12:15
Hmp. I have another take on such school projects. As an engineering student I was assigned to design a component of a device for McDonnell Douglas (now part of Boeing). I got an “A”. I’m told MDD actually built my design and saw a video of it in action, but I never received a penny or written acknowledgment for it. (True, we were told that could happen beforehand, but the experience still left a mixed taste in my mouth.)
March:05:2010 - 13:13
It is a much easier road from Portuguese to Spanish than vice-versa. In other words, Portuguese-speakers will understand more Spanish that Spanish-speakers understand Portuguese. This may be structural or because there is more exposure to Spanish. Don’t know.
What is certain is that regional differences in speech are disappearing in the age of global broadcasting. I don’t see the differences in English and Brazilian Portuguese that were common in the 60s. Spanish is a little different because there are so many variants because of the geographically diverse environment. The telenovelas will take care of that too, I suppose.
This same trend is probably happening all over the word (interchange of words, standardization, simplification, domination of one language and variant, etc.)
Professor Higgins would be without a job in this age.
March:05:2010 - 14:04
Latin Americans can distinguish among different national types of Spanish by accent, vocabulary, and some idiosyncracies of expression and structure. I can understand some Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese which is based on 17th century Portuguese, and find the latter easier so I think it is closer to Spanish. Must attend next year’s Mardi Gras for research purposes. LOL
True that dialects or languages are similar based on geographical proximity, sometimes because a border was just put right down the middle of a linguistic group. Nissard and Corsican are both between French and Italian, with Nissard more French and Corsican more Italian. Dialectal French in Alsace Lorraine is very close to German, Catalan somewhat French-Spanish, etc. The current dominant and official languages are those dialects which gained political prominence, often by the sword.
Solomon2–good point, and the pseudo-consent (too much of a power differential for students to give genuine consent in such a situation), or informing doesn’t make intellectual property theft any more ethical. In one of the classes for my Masters 3 of us were very well trained prior in the prof’s methodology and literatures of choice. The 3 of us received our grades but no paper back, all high grades, ranking above the rest of the class who all did get their papers back. I sent one of my copies for academic publication before he could publish it under his name. Fortunately it was accepted without changes and published quickly. One never fully respects someone after such a stunt as he tried to pull (he had used one of his doctoral student’s work previously without accreditation). It is potentially worse in the sciences where patents and money are involved, but also in any field for building a professional portfolio, and just plain honesty.
The opposite also happens where everyone in sight is given authorship, to make all happy and boost their productivity, or make it look that way. Again, honesty would solve the problem.
March:05:2010 - 15:35
Oh, no!! I think he’d be working overtime, though likely with lower pay. Give it another century or so and he might be out of work, but the transitions and changes going on now are fascinating.
March:05:2010 - 16:28
Lucky for you, Chiara, that you were informed enough to know to and how to publish your work as quickly as possible. Not enough graduate students are aware of these matters, and eventually it comes back to bite them. (An alternative to publishing is to use a school’s protected archive, but unfortunately many students don’t know of it until too late.)
In the case of my engineering project, intellectual property wasn’t as much of a concern (I was, after all, told I couldn’t patent it before I started) as simply being able to take professional credit for it. It mattered a few years later when the device (or one like it) migrated to the National Institute of Standards for further refinement. Had I had a letter attesting to my role in the design it could have enhanced my career considerably, with higher-paying job offers and a shot at a seat on a standards committee.
March:05:2010 - 19:04
I do believe the good Professor Higgins was one of those 19th century men of private means, who did high level research at their own expense and reported on it to the Royal Society. Today he would spend most of his time begging for, I mean writing grant applications for, paltry sums, and being told to change his area of specialization. Languages are constantly mutating as are the approaches to studying them (eg neuro-imaging now), so no worries about material for study.
Solomon2–that is really awful, and a very good example of the exploitation of student work without giving credit. One should always keep all the “rough drafts” notes etc to prove one’s participation, even if credit is granted (people mysteriously claim that they did 80% of a group project; ie each one of the group in applying for a position, grant, promotion claims to have done 80% of the work). However, it is not always worth pursing and sometimes backfires.
I was lucky that in 2nd year undergrad I wrote a lit paper in French that 2 profs thought should be published and they guided me through the process, and a 3rd prof took me under wing re: the importance of publications, grants, CV etc. The first 2 were women and feminists, the 3rd was a man and a feminist. He also promoted the careers of other top women students, and collaborated well with women colleagues to give them further opportunities.
You are right other grad students, especially if they don’t come from an academic family or one in the same profession as they are aiming for would miss out by not even knowing there is a future issue.
March:05:2010 - 20:32
You mean Higgin’s research wasn’t grant funded? I couldn’t stand Audrey Hepburn’s shrill voice as Eliza. Too bad I missed Julie Andrews in the original Broadway version. She was always fabulous.
The Gazal is a good project for engineering students.